August events at Matterley estate will avoid JLS chaos, say organisers (From Hampshire Chronicle)

August events at Matterley estate will avoid JLS chaos, say organisers

9:30am Thursday 14th July 2011 in News By Joseph Curtis

ORGANISERS of major events on an estate near Winchester have given assurances there will be no repeat of the chaos at last month’s JLS concert.

Both the Boomtown Fair music festival and the Motocross 2011 Grand Prix of Great Britain are being held at the Matterley estate near Cheesefoot Head next month.

Hundreds of fans missed part or all of a JLS gig because of a “perfect storm” of weather and traffic problems. The bedlam caused hours of disruption in the Bar End, Morn Hill, A31 and A272 areas on June 17.

But Steve Dixon, organiser of the motocross on August 20-21, said his event would cause no trouble.

Motocross has seen chaos at Matterley Estate before, after the 2006 Motocross of Nations event, where wet weather, an accident on the A31 and abandoned cars led to major disruptions.

Mr Dixon said: “We learnt a hell of a lot and it will never be that bad again. We went through huge changes. I was there with the police on Monday and they could not believe how much we have done. We’ve spent well over £50,000 on new measures as we cannot afford for it to go wrong.”

The Motocross of Nations event in 2006 saw around 60,000 people on site, but Mr Dixon has confirmed only 25,000 will be at the grand prix, as agreed with the police.

There will be several access routes to three onsite car parks from the A31 and A272, while Mr Dixon confirmed there will be “five or six” exits.

The event will use 60 stewards to deal with car parking alone, while they have also employed police motorcycles to marshal the traffic.

Organisers of the Boomtown Fair on August 11-14 have assured the city council they have traffic plans in place to manage the thousands expected to attend over four days.

The council confirmed they would learn from the lessons of the JLS gig ahead of the upcoming events. A spokeswoman said: “We will be making sure that any lessons learnt are passed on. We talk to all of these groups about how it’s going to work and make sure they are working.”

MP, Steve Brine, has warned future events to be cautious. “The bottom line is that it can rain, even in August, and the traffic can be busy around Winchester, especially in August. The organisers need to grip this and do so fast if they are to have any chance of regaining the trust of local people.

“If Matterley is to continue as a venue, it needs to learn the lessons from those who have more experience of safely hosting thousands of people, which is why I am so pleased to hear they are talking to the team behind Glastonbury and Reading. We will all be watching closely.”

It emerged at the council’s cabinet meeting last Wednesday (July 6) that JLS organisers had expected a steady flow of concert-goers rather than a rush hour surge.

David Ingram, council environmental protection team manager, said the JLS organisers had expected many of the 13,000 ticket holders to arrive early. He said organisers thought children would have played truant from school.

Mr Ingram added that concerns were raised, but organisers insisted that, on the experience of similar shows elsewhere, traffic flow would be steady.

Before the meeting, Robert Heathcock, assistant director for high-quality environment at the council, confirmed changes would be made to handle future events.

He said: “The event organisers co-operated fully with all of the agencies prior to and during the event and the actual event passed off safely.

However, the traffic management plan did not cope with the problems experienced and changes will have to be made for future events.”

Peveril Bruce, owner of the Matterley Estate, has appointed a national expert who has worked with the Glastonbury and Reading festivals.